Geocaching July 2021

Continuing the effort to acheive 500 geocaches found before the summer ends...

I donated blood at the American Red Cross donor center by the Mall in Columbia. Usually I go get a treat afterward. Checking the geocaching app, I saw a cache on the other side of the mall right near Corner Bakery. I bought a pecan pie bar and a chai and found Sandra's Birthday Cache! 13! It was not difficult, probably because I was there early enough to avoid lots of muggles. The log was very wet so I could not sign it. I left a note on the app when I logged the find.

The stripy awning is Corner Bakery, the geocache is somewhere else

I ran some errands in Maryland City, Maryland, and found two caches there. 

Behind a shopping plaza is The Black Magic Cache. The location was mostly muggle-free and it didn't take long to find the cache.

Nothing particularly magical about the spot

In the front of the shopping plaza is Strong Mints... Ground zero is right next to a former Pier One store that's been closed for a while. Even so, a bunch of people parked nearby when I showed up, forcing me into stealth mode. This was another easy find once I was less visible. As you might guess from the title, the container was an Altoids tin.

Not at the gas station

While in Texas, we found some caches to help us along the way to 500. The first cache was Leadership Class 4 Series, Since 1937 in Dripping Springs. The Rippy Ranch and Supply store across the street has been in business since 1937. We didn't shop there since we don't own a ranch. We did find the cache fairly quickly, so quickly that we didn't take a picture. We did stop at Rolling in Thyme and Dough, a fun coffee shop that's across the other street.

A fun place for a drink, breakfast, and snack

We went to Bee Cave, Texas, to check out that suburb and found a cache in Central Park, which is not really centrally located. Maybe they'll develop the other side of the park? The cache was Girl Scouts - Gold Award. The Gold Award is the highest achievement in Girl Scouts, though the cache itself is not part of a Gold Award project. It was still fun to find and had a nice view of Bee Cave in the distance. Also, I saw my first cactus in Texas.

View from the cache to Bee Cave

View in the other direction

Nearby cacti!

By our hotel, two geocaches were hidden by a fan of The Beatles. The series is about the Blue Meanies, the bad guys from the Yellow Submarine movie. The first cache I found was TBM - The Butterfly Stompers. The find was quick and easy and less exposed than it looks like in the picture. The traffic on the road goes by pretty fast.

The location will be obvious to experienced geocachers

The second cache was TBM - The Countdown Clowns. This cache is on the other side of the hotels so the exposure is much less. I found both in less than five minutes!

Another easy find

The other Blue Meanie caches are premium caches and we are between being premium members, so maybe we will find them later on another trip.

The count is now 496, so very close!

Random Bits of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Here's some more bits from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Near the Capitol is a couple of churches. We did not get into the Cathedral Parish of Saint Patrick but it looked very impressive from the outside.

St. Patricks

Practically next door is the Grace United Methodist Church, that also looks like it would be fun to see the insides. Maybe on a subsequent visit.

Grace United Methodist Church

 We saw a Red Cross building too, with a very classical look.

Harrisburg chapter of the Red Cross

By the state history museum is a replica of the Liberty Bell that's located in Philadelphia. Which reminds me, we still haven't taken the kids to see that yet. We'll have to make a trip to Philly someday.

Liberty Bell (copy)

We walked way down one street from the Capitol to Midtown Scholar Bookstore, a used/new book store that takes up a whole building.

Midtown Scholar

Cool shelves

A nice open store

 Our hotel had a funny sign in the bathroom to let us know they keep track of their stuff.

I should sell household items to this hotel

Another Government Agency's Zombie Planning

Everyone looks up to Grandpa!

Ace reporter Frank Cerabino from The Palm Beach Post reports on the zombie preparedness plan of Okeechobee County in a recent article sent in by Grandpa.

Following in the vein of the CDC's recent report, Okeechobee County Emergency Management Director Mitch Smeykal unabashedly promotes the work of his predecessor in creating a Zombie Apocalypse Annex. The annex was developed to "spice up" annual planning exercises, which can become rote if the same disaster scenario is run year after year. The result could be zombie-like disaster responders who don't think about the dynamics of an actual response. So the annex isn't really part of their disaster response plan, but it helps to keep it and their people fresh. The web page with the annex has many other valuable resources for a zombie apocalypse, such as this sign:

I wish I had a nickel for every time...

Details of the plan are fairly familiar to anyone whose read The Zombie Survival Guide or The Zombie Combat Manual (see the definitive comparison of those two works here). Find weapons in your home appropriate for your skills (if the only tool you have is a hammer, even a zombie starts looking like a nail) and for knocking down a zombie or knocking its head off. The advice is localized for Florida residents, as reporter Cerabino explains:

Homeowners who don't evacuate are urged to fortify their dwelling in the same way they'd prepare for a hurricane.
"Hurricane shutters strong enough to resist a 2-by-4 at 50 mph will hold up to the breach efforts of Zombies," it read.
We hope.

See, it is just like preparing for any other disaster! The web page even says that the zombie apocalypse is like a "response to a pandemic virus and a civil defense related social uprising" all at once.

Also, I have to admit that in my past, I helped with an unusual disaster preparedness plan annex. I volunteered at an American Red Cross chapter and worked on their disaster response plan. One of the annexes to the plan is a hazard analysis, which listed possible disasters in the chapter's jurisdiction, their likelihood, and their impact. Our little committee had a sense of humor, so in addition to the normal possible disasters we included "Godzilla attacks," which had a very low likelihood but a very high impact on the community if it did happen. The plan made it through the review process with the chapter leadership and the state leadership without comment or deletion. Whenever the people from that committee run into each other, we always smile and say, "Godzilla lives!" It's our secret code word. Well, it's not so secret now. Whoops!